gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

Who: Lucas & Bash
When: I'm gonna say July 10thish, arbitrarily, around 1AM
Where: Atlanta. And then Brooklyn.
What: This is........seventeen pages of dork fluff. I'm not kidding. Lucas and Bash get up to some low level crime in the middle of the night.
Warnings: I play it REALLY FAST AND LOOSE with the rules of Apparition because I wrote the starter while drunk. And also, like, seriously dudes, it's a long one. Also, probably language?

Lucas doesn’t even know if Bash is awake, but he sends the text anyway:

Hey. Can’t sleep. I’m going to come over.
12:30am

He’s never done this before. This being several things: leaving without permission, apparating in the middle of the night, dropping in on someone without extensive plans, first. But it’s been forty-five minutes since he awoke with a jolt - dreaming of dark forests and too much blood and rooms that don’t lead where they should - and every creak and groan of their old, settling house fills him with fear in a way it never did before. Sleep isn’t coming back to him. Not for a while.

He needs to get out. Get some fresh air. And apparently his teenage brain has decided that the freshest air is 850 miles to the northeast. Being sixteen is great.

So, Lucas gets dressed in the dark, grabs his wand and disappears from his room with a snap of magic. Fifteen minutes and a couple dozen more snaps later, he’s in Canarsie, standing like an idiot outside the Lacroix residence, and only just realizing that this was probably a mistake of not insignificant size.

His dad will want to ground him. His mom will be proud.

He’ll tell his mom first.

Lucas pulls his phone out. “Here.” He texts, wondering if maybe he should, like, throw some pebbles at a window or maybe just go back home or something.

The thing about small children is that they are exhausting. And the larger the group of small children a person is put in charge of, the larger the likelihood that said person is going to pass out, face-first onto the living room sofa at a genuinely absurdly early time of day.

The sound of his phone going off, however, is enough to startle Bash back to life again - coming to with a strangled yelp and a full-body flail that nearly knocks him off of the sofa and transforms his cat into a fluffy, hissing hell-beast dead set on treating his spinal chord into her personal pincushion. All in all, it's probably one of his more graceful wake-up calls. He flings out a hand, succeeding in not dropping his phone onto the floor and stares muzzily at the screen before replying.

yes okay. any time uyo want.
12:32am

Bash blinks down at the display for a few seconds after that, wrinkling his nose at the autocorrect function and generally failing to not trip over a very irritated Godzilla as he gets to his feet. Not only was that a terrible and incoherent reply, he maybe should’ve asked when. Or how. Or - wow, not at all, because the answer to all of those things is very obvious, he should maybe find himself actual clothing instead.

He’s finally gotten his limbs to play along in a collaborative effort to find the stairs when his phone chimes again. Damn it. Magic. Fuck. Why are you so efficient? Lucas is outside right now and these shorts are really short and this shirt is sort of falling apart and - Shit, Lucas is outside right now. At half-past dark o’clock in fucking Canarsie being skinny and stringy and white as all hell. He maybe skids into the front door a bit before he swings it open, heart beating over-quick and mumbling curses at the screen before tripping himself onto the stoop. It’s not terribly graceful.

Which works, really. Because his reply isn’t terribly coherent.

“I, uh -” He tugs on the collar of his t-shirt, blinking owlishly. “I mean, sorry! I -” His lips tug up at the corners, almost helplessly, at seeing Lucas standing there. Still white as all hell and totally not murdered. “Hey?”

Lucas’ expression tilts up, building the foundation of a smile – but it doesn’t quite get there, because it’s nearly one in the morning and he just barged in like it’s six hours earlier and he lives down the street. This is not something Lucas Kowalski would’ve done a month ago. The thought fills him with a weird mixture of excitement and shame. Mostly shame, though, let’s be real. Three parts shame to one part excitement.

This was certainly an idea. Lucas crumples into his shoulders, wrapping his fingers around his elbows. Trying to make himself seem smaller. He ducks his head, feeling the prickle of sheepish guilt across his back as he says, “Morning,” and then, “Sorry. I woke you up.”

Bash is down the front steps and standing on the pavement in front of him before Lucas even has enough time to finish speaking. “Nah,” he waves a hand, quick and dismissive. “You were doin’ me a favor. I didn’t even make it to my room. Just sacked out in the living room like a lazy ass. Pretty sure the dog’s claimed my bed as her own by this point.”

He flushes mildly, tugging on the hem of his shorts and his fidgeting in no way motivated by the potential for viewing by passerbys. (His neighbors have seen weirder, let’s be real. He isn’t overly concerned with their opinions of him.) “You okay?”

“I, um—” Lucas’ head is a jumble, and it’s tough teasing out whether guilt or fear or excitement should be winning out. It might not be any of those three, though. Standing there, without eight hundred miles separating him from the boy he likes very much, stills at least some of the chaos in his head. And, staring at those shorts on Bash’s legs, it seems as though the dark horse contender – affection – is going to claim the final victory.

One side of his mouth pulls up into a smirk. “Feeling a bit better, now,” he says, softly, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Just...bad dreams, again.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he blurts, “I wanted to—to see you.” That admission puts color into his cheeks. In a scramble to not seem as pathetic as he feels, he adds, “Good to see Sarah is a reliable source.”

Bash snorts, eyes rolling skyward and a hand scrubbing its way through the mess of his hair. “Sarah’s a fucking public menace. I don’t know what her kindergarten teacher was thinking, teaching that kid how to write.” Definitely a mistake right there. Education is terrible and nobody should get themselves one.

The attempt at irritation falls way flat, if the way he grins up at Lucas is anything to go by. “You wanna walk - or you wanna come in?” he asks, snagging the other boy’s fingers and not making any particular move to choose a direction. Lucas wanted to be here and that’s enough for him. “Cause if it’s the walking, I should probably put on pants.”

“Is a walk safe at this hour?” Lucas asks, which pretty much immediately feels like a ridiculous question, given he knows, factually, that their own damn school is a far more dangerous place to take a stroll. Lucas wouldn’t be Lucas without a heaping helping of high strung reflexive caution, though. “If so, yeah. That sounds nice.”

He laces and re-laces their fingers, a little anxious and not quite ready to let go of Bash’s hand. “You don’t think the shorts will keep the muggers at bay?” Lucas jokes, grin finding its way back across his face. “They have an, ‘I am not to be trifled with’ vibe.”

“Eh,” he waves his free hand, letting it teeter back and forth while the other squeezes itself tight. That they’ve seen worse isn’t what anybody wants to hear in the middle of the night, even with the porch-light painting everything a soothing sort of gold. “We’ll be fine. I know where I’m taking you.”

Then he tilts his head toward the front door before pulling Lucas through it. Ain’t polite leaving somebody waiting around for you outside when there’s a perfectly good house right in front of them. His voice lowers, less out of any real concern and more out of routine politeness. “They have a ‘there’s no point in shanking this kid, he takes care of it himself’ vibe,” he adds, pausing at the bottom of the steps. “You wanna come up while I find pants less retinally offensive? Ariel’s out, so it’s just Zookie.”

“Maybe they could pass for ‘crazed escaped murderer grabbed the first pants he could find after a successful jailbreak’,” Lucas, matching Bash’s volume, offers with a shrug. “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, reimagined as a thriller.”

His expression brightens obviously at the mention of Godzookie, theoretical reboots of teen dramas quickly forgotten. Hard not to feel kinship with a creature that’s just as gangly and awkward as you are. “Sounds like a plan.” He whispers, happy to let himself be led upstairs.

“I would probably be allowed into a sisterhood,” he admits, attempting not to barrel up the stairs in a way that makes them creak too much. The door to his and Ariel’s room is cracked open, and he waves Lucas through with a confidence that’s been hard-won. It’s small and cramped and looks a lot like two opposing forces had an intense interior design battle that ended in a stalemate - makeup taking up a disproportionate portion of the counterspace and plastic stars doing a poor job of illuminating the ceiling, unmade bed in the far corner completely overtaken by sheer amount of dog.

Said dog lifts her head for a moment, ears piqued upward, before dropping it back onto the covers with a sleepy whuf - though the air of indifference is ruined by the heavy thumpthumpthump of her tail hitting the covers at breakneck speed.

Bash rolls his eyes, motion fond, nudging Lucas lightly in Godzookie’s direction and tossing himself into the closet like a man going to battle. His voice echoes from amid the clacking of hangers, “You’re a travesty, Zook. Ain’t nobody want to come to you all the time.”

Lucas plops down on the only corner of Bash’s bed not occupied by dog and instantly sets his hands to Zookie’s head, like magnets to iron, scratching behind her ears. “Don’t listen to him,” he confides in a hushed tone. “You’re perfect.”

Hands busying themselves with the dog, Lucas pivots and looks around the room. He likes the chaos of it. And how it feels like Bash’s room (or, half of it does, anyway). And also how it’s already starting to feel a little familiar to him. That part makes him feel all warm in his chest. He gnaws his lower lip thoughtfully. “Ariel at a sleepover or something?”

Bash lets out a snort as Zookie lets out a long, contented groaning noise and shifts to lean a genuinely absurd amount of weight onto Lucas’ hip, tail still beating out a loud pattern against the top-sheet.

“Yeah, supposedly at her friend Diamond’s house. But I’m callin’ that straight bullshit,” he stumbles back out through the closet door, wearing a pair of sweatpants and only one sneaker. He pauses there, shoe in his hand and expression clouded with a fondness that borders on ridiculous. “So, hey, no matter what we get up to, we got ourselves someone else potentially more screwed than we are in the morning.” He says it all with a grin, though. Bright and not at all concerned. His mom likes Lucas. (And there’s another thought that sets him grinning. His mom likes Lucas.) It’s fine.

“Well, we should--” Lucas lets out a huff and a laugh under the sudden weight of all that dog. He pauses to scrub her head affectionately before finishing the thought. “We should take advantage. Any crime – petty or otherwise – you want to take care of?” He turns his attention back to Bash, smile going dopey, and decides in that moment that if Bash asked him to, he’d totally rob a bank.

Godzookie butts up into Lucas’ fingers and then Lucas is smiling at him and Bash kinda needs a second to stare at the hardwood and settle all of the butterflies fluttering around in his stomach. He teeters slightly and throws an arm out to balance himself as he leans over to tug on his other sneaker.

He glances up, teeth pulling at one half of his lower lip. “I definitely got one in mind,” he admits, taking a few steps forward to swipe his wand off of the nightstand. “You wanna go and rebel without a cause?”

It surprises him a little. Not that Bash asked but that he doesn’t immediately want to say, No, we probably shouldn’t. On the contrary, he’s saying, “Yes, what do you have in mind?” with such ease and enthusiasm you’d think Lucas Kowalski regularly stole away in the middle of the night to get up to mischief with his boyfriend. He pats Zookie’s head one last time before standing and taking a step closer. Bash makes him want to say yes to everything.

“Nothing too intense. Don’t want to overextend on your first illegal field trip,” he replies, stuffing his wand into his pocket along with his phone. Then he rocks back on his heels for a moment, holding out an offering hand. “Just a bit of casual trespassing.”

“You’re very thoughtful,” Lucas snickers bobbing his head. He pats his pockets to make sure everything’s still there – wand, phone, chapstick, all the important stuff – and then claims Bash’s hand readily, locking their fingers with a squeeze. “Ready for my first foray into a life of crime.”

They make quick enough work of the stairs and the front door closes behind him easily enough, lock miraculously not sticking for once. And it’s there, back in the glow of the streetlights, that Bash skids himself to a stop for just a second - bouncing onto his toes to press his lips, quick, to the place where Lucas’ jaw hinges. Just because he can. Just to make up for not doing it sooner.

“Life of crime looks good on you,” he says. “I’m real glad you came over.”

Lucas’ head goes to bubbles, like a shaken up can of soda. His lips crack into a crooked smile and he leans into Bash’s space, though he’s too awkward to do anything more than chuckle breathlessly. You really need to work on that, Lucas.

“Me, too,” he says, managing to sound far calmer than he feels. “Thanks for, um, enjoying the imposition? Really.” After a beat and a chew on his lower lip, he says, “So, where’s the job, boss? Where are you taking me?”

“About four minutes out,” Bash replies, jerking his thumb toward the corner before making sure their fingers are knotted and stepping off of the pavement. Might as well start their delinquency off with some recreational jaywalking while they’re at it. Fully commit to the whole crime spree thing.

The night is quiet, streets relatively empty if not outright deserted, and most of the storefronts have their metal grates pulled down over the windows. It isn’t exactly inviting, but he’s more than content with the walk, pace slow and their joined hands swinging. “Probably important to know your general opinion on swingsets before we get too far.”

Lucas lets himself be distracted, briefly, by the sound of their feet scuffing against the street and the shadowy corners of all the locked up buildings. It’s eerie, but he’s not frightened. Walking like this, with their hands intertwined – it’s more pleasant than spooky. Kind of thrilling, almost.

He glances at their hands and feels a rush of warm excitement. Definitely thrilling.

“Safer than a jungle gym,” he responds, finally, shrugging one shoulder, bumping himself against Bash. “I used to be afraid that I’d flip myself over one.” He tilts his head to the side, pondering, “Though I guess that’d be pretty easy to do now, with the whole, wand-and-magic thing.”

“That’s -” Bash wrinkles his nose, manages to look mildly sheepish about the whole thing, even if he has to put a bit of effort into it. The realization that pride he usually takes at this story is a bit ridiculous is a new one. (And totally isn’t motivated by the fact that he doesn’t want Lucas to think that he’s ridiculous.) “Actually how I broke my arm the first time?” He waits a beat, lips twitching to the side with barely contained amusement, before adding a clarifying: “Attempting to, not actually succeeding at, the swing-flip.”

His chin dips, doing a poor job of shading the grin of grade-school shitheads everywhere. “Everybody saw. So y’couldn’t just fix it. My mom made me go to the no-maj emergency room and everything.”

Lucas listens with his whole body, turning to face Bash, his pace changing to a shuffle as he tries to walk sideways. His mouth hangs open in a broad grin and he shoves his free hand up into the tangle of his curls, tugging his fingers through. “Seriously?” He snorts in laughter. “Well, my excess caution and paranoia have finally paid off, I guess.”

He tries to sound flippant, but those were the sorts of escapades Lucas watched with a mix of fear and envy as a child – never courageous enough to try, himself. The way he looks at Bash now, all interest and admiration, it’s plain he’s still impressed by such stunts.

“Did you have to wear a cast long?” He asks. “Or, just, have a healer zap you up after the crowds were gone?”

The transparent interest there sets off something zinging and electric between his ears. The sort of fidgety something Bash remembers from the years before he’d gotten his scholarship letter mixed with the new and equally stupid urge to display his stupidity in whatever manner would best garner more of that interest. (Well, that’s not going to be a problem at all.)

Bash arcs one very skeptic eyebrow, “You met my mom - what do you think?” It’s a tragically easy answer. “Be real suspicious if Muriel next door saw you get fixed up over night, Sebastien,” he elaborates in an accurate approximation of his mother’s clipped tone, before dropping off into his own lazy drawl. “Had to wear it for the full six weeks. It might’ve been pink.”

“Muriel’s so nosy.” Lucas agrees, hushed in mock frustration. And then, placing a hand over his heart and dipping his head in mourning, he adds, “Harsh.” Which is probably the best way to sum up being forced to wear a cast for six weeks when you’re a wizard.

Lucas jabs a suspicious finger in Bash’s direction, one corner of his mouth tugging up higher than the other. “No broken arms on tonight’s crime spree. I don’t know any healing spells.”

“Muriel’s a harpy,” he concurs, knocking their shoulders together before stopping at the crosswalk long enough to lazily check for traffic. “But, I mean, Wyatt was forced to be friends with me in public while I wore a pink arm cast with flowers drawn all over it. Which is real hard on a dude’s masculinity when you’re in second grade.”

To be entirely fair, Bash has pretty much consistently been the hardest hit on Wyatt’s masculinity for the last ten years straight.

Bash jumps guiltily, free hand raising in capitulation even as his grin stretches into a wide and unholy thing. “No grievous bodily harm. I hear you. Hundred percent.”

“Wyatt’s a saint,” Lucas starts, and then immediately loses his train of thought.

It’s a good thing it’s dark, because his cheeks get hot, face flushing with color when Bash’s grin goes all broad. Lucas makes a mental note to try and work on that reaction, but for now just bites down on his own smile. He tries out focusing on his shoes, which are much safer and more boring to look at than Bash’s grin or his freckles or the way the corners of his eyes wrinkle when his smile gets big and bright like that.

They’re across the street before he starts up again. “How much more hardship are you gonna put that kid through, huh?”

Bash stops walking, stands stock still just long enough that their hands go taught and tug in the space between them. For, y'know, maximum dramatic impact.

"One time, Wyatt tried to ask me if I'd like to make out with Casey Patterson," Bash replies, tone gone vaguely horrified and nose crinkling clear up on one side. He sticks out his tongue for good measure. "Every horrible thing I've ever done in my life was retroactive karma for that moment."

Lucas hesitates, now. He turns to face Bash, squinting a little, grin unsure. “You’re gonna make that face over Casey Patterson,” he says with a disbelieving laugh. He looks down at himself, as though he’s checking to make sure that he’s still the same awkward, twiggy boy he knows he is and then, carefully, takes Bash’s other hand in his own to draw him closer. “And...” the rest of that thought gets stuck in his throat, because the butterflies in his stomach are having a party.

His mouth hangs open while he tries several times, several different ways, to finish it. Ultimately, though, all he can settle on is a dip of his head. “I’m...really lucky.”

“First off?” Bash tilts his head, fingers twitching as though he’d very much like to start counting on them. “Casey Patterson would eat me for breakfast.” A beat, squeezing his hands tight again. ”In the unpleasant, chew you up and spit you out way.” No real point in pretending otherwise. Or pretending that he understands the particular appeal of that. Abs are plenty nice to look at - nobody’s going to catch him pretending otherwise - but Lucas reads Poe and wants to hold his hand on Avenue L in the middle of the night. So it isn’t really much of a contest, is it?

“And what? You think he’s cuter than you?” he glances upward, smile still in place but eyes narrowed in challenge. “Cause I’ll fight you on it.”

Lucas nods along until confronted. His brows shoot up and he laughs reflexively. “Fight me on it.” He repeats, to make sure he’s hearing right. He gives Bash’s hands a tug. “Rumble in the playground?” It’s not wise for him to push this. Even with a solid five inches on Bash, he’s still the World’s Most Noodley Sixteen-Year-Old and could be toppled by an angry toddler.

As a certified toddler-wrangler, Bash feels reasonably confident in his chances here and it shows - smile twitching up into something far more smirky and his return tug gets some oomph put into it, taking a step backward and pulling them the rest of the way down 95th Street.

"Damn right, I'll fight you on it," he replies, shooting for tough and only succeeding in landing somewhere around playfully amused. "But you gotta break into the playground first."

Lucas frees one hand to retrieve his wand from his pocket, tightening his grip on Bash with the other as they hurry down the street. “I can’t wait to explain to my parents that I got arrested eight hundred miles away from home because...because my cute boyfriend is a bad influence.” He sounds somewhere between resigned and excited.

“You need a padlock alohamora’d?” He asks. And then, a little apprehensively, “How much climbing is going to be involved here?”

Well, shit. That's it. He's done for.

Bash's already questionable hold over the remaining vestiges of successful teasing go right the hell out the door, quickly replaced by a smile that's just a bit stupid around the edges. Because, man, that still sounds really, ridiculously exciting every time he hears it out loud. Even when it's just one of his sisters teasing him about it - but especially when he gets to hear Lucas say it.

So he only lasts half a second before he's helping to shove his boyfriend's wand back into his pocket manually, shrugging up one shoulder and folding like a cheap deck of cards. "None," he admits, blinking up at the places where the streetlights catch in the spaces between the messy spirals of Lucas' curls. "There's a hole in the fence."

“Really entry level crime spree, then,” Lucas observes with a chuckle that’s a little softer, a little breathier, than normal. He stops after, doesn’t move or speak or breathe, attention fixed on the line of Bash’s grin.

There’s a restless feeling under his skin, like he’s had too much caffeine. Lucas bounces on his toes and, wand back in his pocket, grabs Bash’s hand with his empty fingers just long enough to pull him closer. Finally, he works up the courage to do what he’s wanted to do all night. He rests his palm on Bash’s jawline and leans down to kiss him.

Lucas goes in for something slow and lingering and romantic, but he’s no Casanova and kissing Bash makes all the stuff in his head and chest go haywire. So he’s grinning in a second, and fighting back against a giddy laugh after two. He’d really like it if his dorky ass body would stop ruining these things for him.

This is nice. This is really nice. One of the only still things he's really found, despite the way it makes everything inside of him go all hazy and kind of disastrous. Bash is pretty firm in his belief that he'd climb a fence for this. He'd climb all the fences for this. Just Spiderman right the hell up that shit without a second thought, potential pink casts and all.

"We're supposed to that after we pull off a successful heist," he laughs and proceeds to directly contradict himself, winding his fingers into overlong curls and tugging Lucas forward again, rewarding poor criminal performance with gusto. (That's good, right? Positive reinforcement for abiding by laws and all that shit.) "We didn't even break or enter a single thing."

It would be one hundred and ten percent alright if you just stood here and made out in the street. Lucas’ lizard brain tells him with such assuredness he almost believes it. Almost goes for it, even - dipping down one last time, eager and feeling more than a little dizzy afterward.

He’s all crackling nervous energy from there. Like this is almost too scandalous for him, shoulders tight, eyes wide, feeling bashful.

“Guess I need to focus if I want to be the next Willie Sutton.” Lucas trails his mumbled words with a sigh. He’d been going for dejected, but missed that exit by a half mile and winds up sounding perfectly contented. The grin that spreads across his face is a little crazed, a little mischievous. He nods down the street. “Let’s give ourselves a reason to celebrate, then.”

It’s a real good look, let’s just get that fact established before stepping any further onto property owned by the New York City Parks Department. Definitely in the Top Ten of very good looks on Lucas Kowalski. But, yeah. Totally got this thing under control - if the very obedient, if very distracted, nodding is anything to go by.

“I, um -” Bash takes a step back, turning and nearly jumping out of his skin when he finds himself practically nose-to-nose with chainlink. Shit. Had he been moving? When had he been moving? He shakes his head in some (frankly pathetic) attempt to rattle the fuzz out of it and moves to snag Lucas’ hand again. He does better with a point of focus.

“You’re in the right city, at least?” he offers, taking off for the end of the fence, where a crooked tree cracks the pavement upward and busts through the wire. It rolls back easily with one good tug and he grins, waves Lucas forward like he’s welcoming him into the foyer. “Real class act, Willie Sutton.”

Lucas slips halfway through the gap in the fence, doing a passable job of seeming like a functioning human being and not the barely-held-together human-shaped wad of nerves he actually is. Pausing, he glances at Bash. “Impressive he found a career worth sticking with for forty years,” and then, with a tiredness he probably pilfered from his father, adds, “If only we could all be so lucky.”

He ducks the rest of the way through, careful to keep his clothes from snagging. Once on the other side, with his back turned, he presses his hands to his face and grins, dumbfounded, into his palms. Gosh, his cheeks are hot. And his head is all feathers.

There’s a bit of an internal pep talk – Breathe, Lucas. And don’t be weird. – before he lets his hands fall to his sides and turns back around. “I doubt he started with sneaking onto playgrounds, but who knows.”

This isn’t the first time Bash has come out here after hours - not the first time he’s had company either. Lots of kids knew how to get in, a handful even knew how to turn the sprinklers on if they were real careful about it. But it’s definitely the first time he’s brought somebody. Which is - it’s almost nicer than, y’know, the rest of it. Not quite. But almost. Ish. (It’s a good feeling, at least. Warm in a soft sort of way, kind of like somebody banked a campfire really low in his belly.)

“Everybody’s gotta start somewhere,” he grins, straightening the fence back into place and crowding forward back into Lucas’ space. It’s nicer there. He’s fine with that. “Though I don’t think your mom’d be real fond of me if I set you on a path to bank robbery and prison escape.”

“You’d be surprised...” Lucas says, expression drawing for a second, like he’s watching a train wreck play out in his head. “Maybe she’d be disappointed that I didn’t start out with some mad science but--” That thought finishes in an awkward cough. Your boyfriend is right there, Lucas. Like, right there and very much in your bubble. Pick a better topic.

He swings his arms back and forth a couple of times. Flexes his fingers. Unsure of what to do with himself. On the last forward motion of his arms, he decides, hooking his hands around Bash’s back and pulling him closer. “So, um, that swing set...” This is not conducive to locating swing sets.

None of this has anything to do with swingsets anymore. Even though they’re literally about five feet away at this point. It’s probably sad how easy it is to nudge Bash from one topic to another. But, to be entirely fair, he’s self-aware enough to know that this fact isn’t terribly surprising either. Whatever. Embracing it.

“I’ve always been really good at explosions?” Bash muses thoughtfully, wrapping his arms around Lucas in turn and propping his chin at the center of the other boy’s ribcage. “That ain’t exactly mad science, though. More unfortunately wandering attention span?” He grins, the shape of it going sheepish. “Which - I mean, way less impressive.”

“Hey, an explosion’s an explosion. Doesn’t matter how you get there. Value’s all in the scale...” he pauses, considering. “And total property damage costs – that’s bonus points.”

Lucas sways the both of them playfully, doing a half turn and laughing. He feels a little silly for it. Not that that’s a bad thing. Because it’s nice being able to be silly around more than just his roommates and his parents. It’s nice not feeling like something too tightly coiled.

He dips his head, grin softening as he examines the other boy’s face in the dark. Correction: Bash does make Lucas feel all wound up inside, but in a way that’s new and thrilling and, yeah, a little scary, but mostly awesome. By a wide margin. He taps his fingers against Bash’s back. “So, I guess you’re going to have to live with me thinking you’re pretty impressive.”

It takes Bash by surprise, startling a laugh out of him before he sways right into it, spinning and succeeding in not tripping over his own feet for once. He thinks, maybe, the best part is just how weird it isn't. How maybe all of the things are a little bit ridiculous objectively, but they also make all of the other ridiculous and stupid and, recently, sort of terrifying things seem okay?

"Oh no," he deadpans, tone dry as the Sahara but still a little breathless, ragged with the lingering vestiges of giggles. "Now there's a hardship." He rolls his eyes, digging his fingertips into Lucas' side. "Bein' impressive enough to get a guy to apparate cross-country to hang out in playgrounds with me. Got it real rough."

“You--” He bends abruptly against Bash’s hand, gasping out a single, excited laugh – or maybe a “No!” Although, honestly, it sounds more like “Wuh!”. In what vaguely resembles a really weird dance move, Lucas grasps Bash’s fingers tight, still listing to the side.

There’s a gap, like white space, before he dissolves into alarmed giggles, cheeks going all rosy again. Secret’s out, now. “I’m not ticklish,” Lucas lies, uselessly, but with the confidence of someone who has made this claim a thousand times. Like someone else might observe that, hey, it sure is dark out at one in the morning.

Distraction is the name of the game now, and he hardly lets a heartbeat pass before adding, “But, I am here for you during this trying time.” Lucas pulls Bash’s hand, pressing it against his own back, then leans down and steals a kiss.

"Bullshit you ain't," Bash snorts - which is a super weird sensation when your mouth's all up on somebody else's. Which only makes him laugh harder - head tilting back with the force of it and ruining the kiss entirely.

Good fucking Lord, he's awful at this.

"C'mon," he frees a hand to poke at Lucas' side. "Move it, Kowalski." He grins, prodding him backward with jabs of his fingers before grabbing a handful of t-shirt to keep him from tripping when the backs of his sneakers reach the raised padding surrounding the swing set. "Get going, or I'll be showing you a trying time."

“This wasn’t what I signed up for when I agreed to a fight.” Lucas stammers, laughing and yelping at a particularly pointed jab. He tries, unsuccessfully, to catch Bash’s hands as he twists and angles himself out of the other boy’s way. He teeters a little when his heels touch the padding, but keeps his balance. “I was envisioning fisticuffs or...pistols. This is cruel and unusual and I won’t stand for it.”

He illustrates this point by selecting the lowest hanging swing and dropping down into it. The tops of his knees practically reaching his nose. “Not the right one.” He observes over his legs.

"Pretty sure people aren't supposed to fold up like that," Bash observes, tilting his head to grin down at the mess of limbs Lucas has contorted himself into and hopping up onto the swing next to him, sneakers fitting poorly on top of the plastic seat.

He swings his legs forward, letting his head dangle backward until he's blinking up at the scant amount of stars visible over the city.

He tips his head further, blinking at Lucas from upside-down. "Probably the only time I'll ever be taller than you, though."

“I pride myself on my ability to collapse into a convenient travel size.” Certainly made getting stuffed into lockers as a preteen less problematic.

Lucas shuffles his feet, walking the swing in a circle, winding the chains together so that they pull tight. The effort lifts him only slightly higher off the ground. He grins at Bash. “You should savor the moment, then. Or eat your wheaties.” When he lifts both feet up off the ground, the swing, and Lucas, spin out.

Bash bends his elbows, pulling himself up straight once more as he watches the dizzy spin of the swing slowly unraveling itself, feeling full up to the brim with with something warm and almost glossy and unspeakably fond. Seeing Lucas smiling is - nice isn't enough of a word, but he keeps tripping himself over it. It is nice. It's nice and it's good and it brings all of the restless things under his skin to an easy simmer.

"You -" he curls his fingers tight around the chains, eyes narrowed down to incredulous little slits and laughter nothing more than a quiet huff of air through his nose. "Man, I got no idea how I made you like me. But shit, I did some good work."

“You’re amazing, is how,” Lucas counters, expression flattening out. He let’s a few seconds of silence pass, thinking and twisting back and forth on the swing, too-long legs wobbling. He looks a little like a marionette. “You’re like...the sun. All warm and bright.”

He tilts his head, one side of his face scrunching up, like he might be regretting saying that. “If the sun were also hysterical and whip smart and not capable of wiping out all life on earth in a matter of seconds,” he pauses. “Not that I’m saying you couldn’t figure that out if you really wanted to.”

“Be a bit counterproductive, don’t you think?”

It’s out of his mouth before Bash has time to even begin processing the rest of Lucas’ reply. Which is really unfair. People can’t keep conversationally baiting him. It’s way too easy and he sometimes has actual points that he wants to make. Speaking of which -

“Hey, no, wait. That’s -” He blinks. “That’s not where we were going with this. Cover your mouth. Shh!” Bash jolts a bit, swing wobbling precariously, as he takes a second to think about just how goddamn rude that probably was. (Conclusion: Very. But probably excusable under the circumstances.) He shakes his head and forges on, face flushed and an index finger unconsciously pulled up to cross over his mouth, going for as much authority as an idiot standing on a swing can possibly achieve. “Ain’t nobody want to hear about me. Seriously tired of that dude. Vastly overrated.” A grin, quick and crooked. “Talks way too much.”

He gives himself the second it takes him to stabilize his platform in order to gather up his words into something nearly coherent, hand dropping back to the bars. “I wanna talk about you - and it’s okay that you don’t like it, you don’t have to say anything.” He’s hasty with the last part, quick to get it out and out of the way. “But I do. Cause I talk too much, but I don’t really say anything? And you should know. That you’re -” Fuck, shit. Damn it. Words.

“You ever been at a concert where the music’s really loud and you’re there for hours, so you totally forget that there was a point before everything was so much it blasted straight through you and made everything rattle around?” One hand shakes, a sloppy flutteringoffingers next to his head. “You’re like that moment when you finally get outside and everything goes sort of soft and far away and there’s nothing but that ringing? And just that. I never get that.”

There’s a smirk on Lucas’ face, hidden behind his hand, as instructed – or, at least, there is until Bash finishes his thought, and then Lucas’ hand falls into his lap and his expression goes quiet and shy. All the stuff inside of him turns to hot static. It ripples out from deep in his core, up and down and every direction. Makes him shiver when it hits his shoulders and flex his fingers when he feels it in his hands. He doesn’t know how to define the sensation, except that it’s like finishing a puzzle. Or rereading his favorite book. But intense and all over and it doesn’t go away, so long as he’s looking at the silly boy standing on the swing in front of him. The silly boy he likes very much.

He opens his mouth, but instead of speaking, takes a short breath and drops his head, curls falling into his face. Lucas’ hand clamps over his mouth, again, because he’s worried if he doesn’t put a stopper on it he’ll laugh or shout or say something incredibly stupid. When he glances back up, it seems restrained, like he might’ve just jumped completely up out of the swing seat if he weren’t careful.

“Thanks,” he croaks from between his fingers, which makes his eyes go wide and his brows knit together, because that was exactly the sort of stupid thing he was worried about saying. Maybe someday he will be good at having conversations about something other than comic books and theoretical real estate. “You—I—That...When I...hrmmm,” growing frustrated, he curls up, hunching his shoulders and knotting his hands in his lap. “That’s—no one’s ever said anything like that to me, before. I, um—I’m really, really – like, I mean, unspeakably, obviously – um, happy? That I make you feel that way? Because, wow, you’re the most amazing person I know.”

It’s very very difficult for Bash to stamp down on the pressing urge to jump in and apologize - there’s, like, no less than four opportunities that probably deserve it and another half-dozen where he feels like one might be helpful. Or maybe disastrous? It’s very hard to tell normally, so it’s fucking useless when he’s sort of having a minor nervous breakdown. Which is, ultimately, what saves him from tripping headfirst into inescapable quicksand of regret. So thanks, anxiety!

Instead he just sort of waits. Maybe a few beats too long, but it’s equally possible that his sense of time is ruined and it isn’t like he’s wearing a watch - so there’s no definitive way to judge anyhow. So he waits. And then he jumps down from his swing, walks across the short distance between the two of them, and folds himself onto the ground in front of Lucas.

He reaches forward to steal the other boy’s hands, very patiently unknotting his fingers and curling his own around them, tugging them close to press his lips to the back of pale knuckles before grinning (some combination of touched and impish) in the scant cover they provide. “You really need to meet some better people.”

Another shiver shoots up Lucas’ back and all his senses go warm and a little hazy. His shoulders relax, but the grip of his hands tighten. “Naw,” he says, his muted, lopsided smirk settling back into place as he leans forward, just to be a little closer. “Don’t wanna. I found a cute guy who laughs at my dumb Poe jokes and takes me to a playground at one in the morning. I’m set.”

Yeah, yeah. The train’s getting derailed again and Bash wrinkles up his nose over it in an overdone show of disapproval, attempting (with middling success) to bite down on the way his mouth wants to curve up to mirror Lucas’ expression.

“This was a terrible rumble,” he replies, pushing forward with the heels of his hands in a shove just forceful enough to set the swing rocking a bit. “But, I mean, I’m declaring myself the victor anyway? So I’m cool with it.”

Lucas responds to Bash scrunching his face with a smug lift of his brows, letting his smile go more pleased. He lets himself swing back, legs unfolding like a particularly ridiculous card table on the way out. On the return, he lets go of a sigh that sounds particularly belabored. “I guess I’ll let you have this one.” He allows with a twitching grin. “Next time it’s a duel. Or maybe a cool sword fight.”

Bash thinks it over, finger tapping on his chin. Then he brightens with inspiration and curls his hands together with his thumbs canted skyward, index fingers braced on each other and extended in front of him. “Nerf guns at dawn,” he offers, narrowing an eye for a better sight-line before sniping the air in front of him with a quiet ‘pew-pew,’ hands bouncing back from imaginary recoil.

Lucas recoils with an animated, “Blugh!” As though the imaginary bullets carried real force. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone shoots finger pistols at you.

The swing gives a twist as he grips one chain and, laughing, lets himself dip backward, slipping to the ground, legs draped over the seat. All told it’s a very dramatic and gruesome death.

“Okay,” he agrees as he stares up at the dark sky, feeling happy, bad dreams and dark forests completely forgotten. “But Jade’s my second, so you’re kinda screwed, either way.”

Blowing phantom smoke from the tip of his finger-gun, Bash snickers and unwinds himself enough to rise onto his knees and shuffle forward, flopping himself down onto his back and wriggling his shoulders into the padding.

"I've had a good run," he shrugs, motion crooked and skidding slightly on the ground. He turns his head toward Lucas, "You can fight Ariel for custody of Zookie after you take me out."

“I’m gonna lose that one,” Lucas concedes with resigned surety. He closes one eye and squints up at an airplane passing overhead. “Ariel could put me in the ground, no problem.”

His curls are kind of a disaster, twirls falling into his face when he lazily tilts his head to the side. Lucas pushes them up and out of the way and considers Bash quietly for a moment before detangling his legs from the swing and scooting himself closer until their shoulders are touching. He tucks one hand behind his head. The other grabs for Bash’s fingers. “This is cool. Thanks, again, for bringing me out here.”

“Ariel could take us all out,” Bash murmurs back solemnly, volume dipping to match the decrease in space, the slow and weighted heaviness settling in his limbs. “Well, maybe not Jade. Jade’s pretty damn wily.”

He turns onto his side, wincing a bit when all the bony bits of him come to rest just slightly wrong, hip settling funnily and shoulder uncertain of which way it wants to fold under him. He shifts again and his jaw cracks around a wide yawn, free hand rising to catch it. “M’sorry for the bad dreams. But anytime, y’know? Anyplace. It’s - I like seeing you.”

“I like--” The yawn hits him mid-sentence and he turns his head, hiding the lower half of his face in his elbow. “Seeing you, too.”

As he turns back to Bash, Lucas rakes his fingers through his hair. One more quiet beat of just watching, feeling full of affection, before he says, “We should head back. And I should get to snapping home.”

“Or -” Bash offers diplomatically, blinking over at him and attempting to convey the fact that this suggestion comes from a place of sincere desire not to have half of a boyfriend through the arc of his eyebrows alone. “We can head back and you can sleep in Ariel’s bed. Go home in the morning when you’re not gonna splinch yourself? I’ll get my mom to call your mom when she gets up.”

“What, you don’t think I wouldn’t look cool with a peg leg? Or a hook arm?” He shrugs. Apparently being splinched means also becoming a pirate.

Lucas very rarely doubts his own talent for spellwork. That cockiness is probably going to come back around to him, eventually, but it makes the kid whose typically afraid of everything remarkably unconcerned by the prospect of magically popping himself in half. Still, he says, “Yeah, that’d be alright. It’s the responsible thing to do, anyway.” Looks like that life of delinquency isn’t going to pan out.